


I don't take coffee, I take tea, my dear

by idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gangsey, Maura's teas, Multi, opal and maura are mentioned, sarchengsey is only implied idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 04:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10654686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo/pseuds/idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo
Summary: the gangsey + teaor, the one where everyone is kind of a mess but tea helps and in the end they're all okay





	I don't take coffee, I take tea, my dear

**Author's Note:**

> english is not my first language and this is not proofread i'm sorry if it's a mess i just wanted to post something again  
> the title is of sting's englishman in new york because i'm in love with him

 

_i. Blue_

Growing up in 300 Fox way, Blue always drank a lot of tea.

Not only Maura’s weird experiments, but living in a house where herbs were used as often as they were in 300 Fox way, it was only logical for them to have a garden for herbs and then make tea from those. Blue loves herbal tea. It calms her down when she’s too wired up from a day of school, of excursions with her boys and serving customers at Ninos, the right mix of peppermint and thyme wakes her up in the morning. It used to be Persephone who made her tea and after her death she stopped drinking it for a few days only to realise it actually comforted her instead of making her miss her even more.

She drinks tea regularly, even starts experimenting on her own mixes, but eventually switches to coffee.

(Black like Ronan’s soul, she likes to say. Ronan just scoffs and tells her hers is just as black.)

Being on the road simply takes her the time to still brew her own tea and the stuff you buy at the supermarket is just not as good as the fresh herbs of her garden. Eventually, she stays with coffee, but there’s still nothing that calms her down like a good cup of tea.

 

_ii. Gansey_

Even though he has an obsession with mint leaves, Gansey actually doesn’t like peppermint tea. He sticks with coffee most of the time, anyway, the only way to stay awake and present after nights when insomnia stole his sleep. He does like to drink black tea every once in a while, with lots of sugar in it, just like his coffee, and sometimes, when he hasn’t slept in too many nights, he drinks a berry mix tea.

(It was Ronan’s idea. One night, when Gansey had slept about ten hours in the last five days, he started bustling in the kitchen. Gansey didn’t take much notice of it until a cup of steaming tea was shoved into his hands.

“What’s this?” Gansey remembers muttering.

“What do you think it looks like?”

“Tea?”

Ronan grinned at him, and the tug of his lips didn’t seem as hostile as usually. “My mother used to make me tea when I couldn’t sleep. And you’re falling apart.”

Gansey was never more thankful to have him as a friend when he woke up after eight hours of peaceful sleep the next morning.)

 

_iii. Henry_

Henry has always loved tea. From all the presents his mum brought home from her travels, tea was always his favourite.

It became a ritual at one point; whenever his mum comes home, there’s some kind of box or sachet of tea from where she just came back from. He probably loves the Ceylon tea she brings him whenever she visited a business partner of hers in Sri Lanka the best, always tries to ration it so he doesn’t use it all before she brings him more. He doesn’t like herbal tea as much, especially after a certain incident with blue’s mother that they don’t talk of.

(Blue still starts giggling when she remembers the look on his face when he tried a brew that was supposed to “lift his spirits”. It did not lift his spirits, that’s for sure.)

He does like coffee, but drinks it with enough sugar to give anyone diabetes, as Blue expresses it. Tea, however, he only drinks with milk. Put sugar into it and he’ll spit it out again. Discreetly of course. He’s got manners, after all. During their road trip through America, the three of them start a collection of the weirdest things they can find. He himself also buys small portions of tea he finds, to drink himself, to give his mum, or to add to his collection of tea he has at home.

(Or for Blue to drink. Or Gansey. Food robbers, the both of them.)

 

_iv. Adam_

Adam never really had tea. At the trailer park (he refuses to call it home now that he knows he is no longer welcome there), there was only ever had water, alcohol, and sometimes coffee for his parents. When he moved out, everything that wasn’t a complete necessity wasn’t bought. He had, of course, the sweet tea at Nino’s and the few times he drank Maura’s teas.

(On accident. Blue’s mum could be very convincing when she wanted to be. He didn’t even realise what was happening before he was trying the tea. A mistake.)

But apart of that, he can’t remember other occasions he had tea. Whenever he can afford an additional hot drink, he gets coffee, because he has to keep awake between work and school and excursions with the group somehow, and tea doesn’t really help with that.

Blue has a thermos she carries around with her a lot, especially when she’s stressed. She always offers everyone tea, but he usually declines, never really having gotten into it properly.

But then one time they’re studying at Monmouth around their finals and Blue takes out the thermos and hands him a cup that he accepts without even thinking because he’s too focused on the book in front of him. He finishes the tea in a few gulps and hands it back to her before realising what it is and only later thinks about how nice it actually was.

The next time she offers he accepts, and shortly before he moves into his dorm room at University she gets him a water cooker and a few boxes of tea so he’ll “survive the next few months”. He hugs her just a bit tighter that evening.

 

_v. Ronan_

Ronan stopped drinking tea because it reminded him of his mother. She used to collect berries in the garden and make her own mixes from them, always offering it as a comfort when needed. So now he drinks tea only when it has so much sugar his teeth hurt and otherwise beer and vodka and stuff he doesn’t really know what it’s made of.

But then there’s Adam and there’s Opal and he realises he has to stop, so he substitutes alcohol with tea and it actually, surprisingly works. He starts drinking several cans of tea a day, and only wavers in this new habit when Adam leaves for University. He knows that they’ll see each other again in a few months but he can’t help but feel helpless without Adam for a while until Opal puts her foot down when she catches him with a beer again one evening and makes him have daily tea parties with her and he remembers why he’s doing this and throws away the rest of the six-pack he bought the other day.

 

 

_vi. home_

And when they all come back to Henrietta for Christmas the barns are filled with laughter and light and the smell of tea and when Opal is in bed they sit around the fireplace with mugs of tea that Ronan made himself with his mother’s old recipe and cookies that Gansey and Henry _apparently_ made themselves with an online recipe.

And they tell stories of their trip and the little towns they ended up in and the weird people they met and Adam talks about Uni and his crazy roommate and Ronan and Blue throw around half-hearted insults and pieces of cookie and in all the voices and laughter they’re _home_.


End file.
